The Legend of the Divine Era
by The Triggered Vertex
Summary: A retelling of the Divine Era, featuring Madoka Magica characters! (Note: I wrote this before I read Nogi Wakaba is a Hero and long before I watched the Hero Chapter of Yuki Yuna is a Hero.)


Gather round Heroes as I tell you this thrilling tale, the legend behind the Shinju-sama, the Vertexes, and the beginnings of the of the Divine Era as passed down orally, by all members of the Taisha…..

Rumors tell of a tale that the Shinju-sama was not always the divine tree that protected us all, rather, this great deity was once an ordinary mortal who walked on this earth centuries ago. Recorded history has stated that she was sweet, kind, beautiful, and… average according to her own words. She always viewed herself as 'nothing special' and humbly dismissed her own abilities and potential; little did she know… she would be the embodiment of hope, the very hope that protects all of us to this day.

Back in the 21st century, an era of the world that took place about three to four centuries ago, the universe was experiencing a lack of energy, for the wasteful sentient beings that inhabited this physical plane used up energy at a rate so steep that existence was on the brink of ruin. However, an intelligent extraterrestrial race known to us as the Incubators foresaw this growing cataclysmic event and sought to prevent it by creating an alternative energy source run on emotion. The emotionless Incubators scoured every nook and cranny of the universe, searching for champions, worthy (and emotional) enough to serve as vessels of this amazing energy source, and thus, the Incubators' reputation for making contracts was born.

And in their darkest hour, the Incubators have discovered the perfect vessels… female middle school students. All champions that had made contracts with these extraterrestrials were imbued with power beyond human comprehension and became warriors of justice, heroes among men, leaders of earth-shattering movements...and in the end, all of them fell to despair. You see the Incubators' 'power converter' completes its task when the champion's soul becomes as black as the darkest night, corrupting them and turning them into the very monsters they were fighting against; a fate truly worse than death itself. It indeed stabilized the universe, but at the cost of countless lives of innocent young girls.

Now, the girl that would be the Shinju-sama was fated with this burden; she too was chosen by the Incubators to be a living battery for the universe. However, there was one, the Shinju-sama's lover, who foresaw the terrible things that would befall the Shinju-sama and used everything in her power to change fate itself. The Shinju-sama's lover had repeated this very month over one-hundred times just to see her beloved escape that horrible destiny, and more than one-hundred attempts of repeating the exact same month, the Shinju-sama was able to escape that fate...by transcending to a higher plane of understanding and becoming a literal god.

Yet, fate had other plans, for the Shinju-sama's lover was dissatisfied leaving her goddess alone in the ethereal plane, away from all human interactions and most of all, away from her. The lover of the Shinju-sama had decided, to split the goddess in two, a mortal component named Kaname Madoka, and the divine concept being the Shinju-sama, which was sealed away in the form of a lowly lizard. The lover of the Shinju-sama rechristened herself as a demon and reshaped the world in her own image, a world where the human component of the Shinju-sama can live a normal, happy human life. It has been said that the human Shinju-sama still walks this earth today.

Now, the Incubators have had their plans thoroughly trashed and thrown into the dumpster, for you see, they had lost the most efficient method of preserving the universe as well as the opportunity to control the Shinju-sama. Even worse for them, the Incubators now had to bear all despair in the universe. Bitter, thwarted, and above all, enraged (as best as emotionless beings can be anyways), the Incubators began to rebel against the demon goddess and vowed to bring fiery judgement upon all the universe for their inefficiency. To perform this daunting task, the Incubators have created a legion of vessels, made from their own flesh and bone, with souls made of pure despair (for the Incubators had plenty to work with after the demon re-shaped the world) and enough power to tear entire planets and rival gods; these harbingers of the Incubators' judgement became known as the Vertexes, named because they were the apex of all lifeforms, natural, artificial, or otherwise.

Tasked with the destruction of the known universe, the Vertexes were immediately dispatched, tearing worlds asunder; planets once rich with life became cold and desolate in a matter of hours; such was the might of a Vertex. Over the course of the few days, the Incubators (now known as the Dark Gods or the Gods of Judgement) had already destroyed 99% of the known universe, and had set their sights on our own solar system. Seemingly victorious, the Vertexes launched a full-scale attack on our solar system destroying everything in sight, leaving only a small chunk of land which is the modern-day Shikoku Island. Indeed, that island would have been destroyed too, but the Vertexes were thwarted by a small, ragtag group of young females, the first hero team, chosen by the Demon Goddess to protect this world. To better preserve what was left of the known universe, the Demon took the lizard that was the Shinju-sama and transformed it into a great tree that waxed quickly, shrouding what was left of the known universe, locking all the Vertexes out and ruining the plans of the Dark Gods even further. Once the barrier was formed, the Demon Goddess had picked Sayaka Miki, a former witch and universal battery, and others that were capable of sensing her presence and began a new order that would bear the task of picking out the new Heroes to protect the Shinju-sama, and thus, the Taisha was born that day and have been recruiting Heroes ever since.

Yet, the Dark Gods were far from finished, for within their plans, they had nestled auxiliary plans to serve as fail-safes lest their initial plans fail. For you see, the Vertexes were created to be the ultimate lifeforms, capable of evolving and adapting to the changing environment, and thus, some Vertexes have found ways to enter the barrier. These Vertexes were far stronger than their normal kin, capable of utterly annihilating the Shinju-sama on their own; in a team, they were nigh unstoppable.

Many a Hero have fallen under the power of these Greater Vertexes, forcing the Taisha and the Demon Goddess to change the Hero system, one that would allow Heroes to access even more power by tapping into the Shinju-sama herself, but at the cost of their physical bodies, for the raw divine power from the Shinju-sama is too pure for the human body to process without a sacrifice.

As the battles waged on and on, the Taisha and the Demon Goddess found a rather peculiar someone, one whose soul was as pure as that of the Shinju-sama herself; this girl would be the one who would destroy the Vertexes and save humanity from destruction. Her name was Yuki Yuna, a student of the Sanshu Middle School. Under command of the Taisha, Inubouzaki Fu was assigned to recruit this girl, and thus, the Sanshu Middle School Hero Club was born. Over time, the club began to recruit more and more Heroes until a the club went from a Trio to a Quintet.

This Quintet of Heroes were the second test subjects of the Mankai System, the aforementioned updated Hero system and casualties decreased dramatically, but at the cost of a bodily functions… so great was the price that one of the earliest test subjects of the Mankai system, Washio Sumi, turned her back on the Shinju-sama, breaking the barrier that protected all known existence….and through the crack caused by Sumi, came forth, the most fearsome Vertex of them all… the Leo Vertex, a Vertex capable of creating blasts powerful as the sun and obliterating even deities. All hope was lost…

Or so we thought... as the world shook under the mighty Vertex's power, Yuki Yuna, in an act of heroism, brought back Sumi to her senses, and valiantly sacrificed nearly all of her physical form, to destroy the dark gods' harbingers of wrath; all that remained of her was an empty husk that resembled a corpse…

But all was not lost for the Hero, for the Demon Goddess and the Taisha were anything but ungrateful, and out of the sincere gratitude from the bottom of their hearts, the Goddess had healed their bodies, returning them to their original state. Thanks to the efforts of the Sanshu Middle School Hero Club, and all previous Heroes that came before them, the Demon Goddess can now rest, watching the love of her life be happy for all eternity, free from the Vertexes...


End file.
